Grrl Power #716 – Emboldened Sydney is bold

One last trip to the medbay before getting home. Hopefully. This is Syndey we’re talking about here.

She really did get stabbed in the ear. Not like, the eardrum, just the “root of the helix” or “forward helix” which is the little flap on the inside loop above the ear canal. That’s not a very good description. Just look at the first panel. Some people get their ears pierced there. Sydney doesn’t have her ears pierced, so I guess she didn’t feel like using Altus’s horn stab as a starter hole.

Anyway, yeah, Sydney’s adventure in space has emboldened her. We’ll have to wait and see if this is a temporary state of affairs, like people going a little crazy on vacation, or if her self confidence has permanently leveled up.

Discussion (217) ¬

And as for the other thing, that reminds me of a scene in Farscape where it was pretty clearly going on between Chiana and D’argo without them directly showing it. I guess the knockout-venom-on-the-tongue part was strictly optional then.

Is it just me that now wants to see a mini side comic where Sydney and Frix go on numerous dates, but each time they do something weird happens. Like on their first date the ship they are on is attacked by space pirates, or Sydney introduces Frix to her favourite earth spicy food, which reacts badly with his alien dna or something. These two are just so cute together, I am totally on board the probably non-existent Frydney ship…Frydney? Friney? Sydix?

*Thinks about one of the endings for Star Ocean The Second Story when the child prodigy / demonologist Leon, from a medieval world, goes on a date with the galactic bounty hunter Opera Vectra on her home planet of Tetragenes*

I’d think that if Sydney were to introduce Frix to her favorite foods (particularly Grakz), Friz would probably point out that there are 42 star systems that implement Gratz to carry out the death penalty on the most heinous criminals.

I suspect that Sydney’s been taking the choker off when getting worked on in the Med Bay. Just as most hospitals limit cellphone usage when you’re seeing a doctor (it’s as much politeness as well as to prevent transmisssion interference with sensitive medical equipment), we should remember that it does have communication ability. At least, there’s short-range radio (between chokers that aren’t very distant), plus it has even more capabilities when plugged into the pipboy.

In each case when Sydney wasn’t wearing it, she was either in that Olympic-sized bathtub or in the Med Bay, sitting very close to medical equipment.

The issue with explaining it, Whosawhatsit, is the mere act of spelling out the actual word he’s saying unmuffled could cause issues with the advertisers depending on how sensitive the content-bot is. I CAN however tell you that he’s laughing about Sydney saying they need to go on another date the instant she saw how long and flexible his tongue is.

Would love to see Sidney getting a little more frisky time with Woof… Kinda like those vacations people have in other countries and when they get home they tell these tales to their friends and they get all jealous about them…

On a side note and nothing related to the comic per se, but where did those bookmarks you had on the side went? i was following a specific comic from there and i can’t, for the love of me, remember what was it’s name or link… It was the one with the sex mage :P

Now I’m sort of curious if they have advanced technology that will let them cure Scoville of her Adhd. Of course, she would have to focus enough on that to ask. And there’s so much stuff going on it would be difficult to find a way to that subject.

Maybe Frix noticed a physical or chemical anomaly (presuming he had the relevant information on humans) and applied a correction as part of one of the treatments. Especially if it takes time to be noticeable.

She is medicating to prevent it, so yes, it is something that needs to be cured. Exactly like colour-blindness or myopia, I might add. I am surprised that at Arc they have not addressed her eyeglasses problem before (we only had the Welma gag during Vehemence battle)

No, she has medication to help her cope when not in stressful situations, that’s not the same thing
Besides, it’s more for others than for her, ask anyone else who has AD(H)D and they will tell you the medication is a hindrance rather than a boon

The only way you could pronounce my name correctly is if you could somehow survive an undulating series of nuclear explosions firing from your mouth while intersecting 15 parallel dimensions.

These are always fun, glad its not one of those sort of dumb ones where it needlessly takes long to pronounce it like the Shadows from Babylon 5 *and Nibbler from Futurama but that was mocking the trope*.

[blockquote]We’ll have to wait and see if this is a temporary state of affairs, like people going a little crazy on vacation, or if her self confidence has permanently leveled up.[/blockquote]

A lack of self confidence? That isn’t the phrase I’d use for Sydney with regards to her sexuality. Speaking with Peggy she was fairly relaxed, but then said “Ew” when referring to the sex act itself. She has shown a huge amount of shyness with regards to semi-public nudity as in the shower scenes, but that isn’t necessarily a self-confidence thing, more of an “I don’t know these people very well” thing. A bit repressed?

If I didn’t know better, I’d think Sydney was trying to find reasons to keep going to the Medical Bay. I hope Frix gets that impression too because then he could just tell Sydney that she could just visit him socially when he’s not “on-duty busy.” He could add that it would be in the interests of her long-term health to actually avoid seeking “professional” visits with him.

Surprised no one has brought this up yet.
Given every other time Sydney has been hurt and healed by something, usually someone in the comments makes a remark like “another chance to test if the unknown orb can heal lost*; after all she did say in the boardroom she’d test it just to see if it could next time she was hurt and has been hurt several times since. Even if its not a medbay orb, she still has passed so many chances just to test that theory.

Who says she passed up the chance? She took a noodle to the eye, you don’t believe she wouldn’t have tested both (at the time) mystery balls, rather than wear an eye patch (no matter how cool it made her look)?

If it doesn’t happen on panel (and/or isn’t referenced by the characters) then it doesn’t happen. Not going to just assume a character would do something off panel because it feels like something they could have done.

That is like assuming Rachel Summers was chewing everyone out during X-men vs Avengers off panel for jumping to conclusions about the Phoenix and acting like they just forget the years SHE was the host for it without them batting an eye at that fact. I mean it would have made sense; but clearly it didn’t happen.

Umm, no, that is flawed and illogical thinking
One of the mysterious balls being a medicine ball was mentioned during her initial boardroom meeting, and that was prior to the Noodle-eye Incident, so Sydney not testing them when she had the opportunity is ridiculous

however the logic is now flawed it is a story telling guide line, especially for a visual medium. If it doesn’t happen on panel or onscreen, and isn’t otherwise explicitly stated; then it remains an unknown event and anything else is conjecture unless otherwise stated by the author (word of God).

So yes while it makes sense that she would test it, and given this can happen in the real world (hindsight is 20/20 rule), doesn’t mean that they thought of it at the time; but might have thought of it later. Like, why didn’t I do that when I had the chance/opportunity; how could I forget. Preoccupation is a thing; not like an event window just shows up for people as a reminder of a pre-set condition to perform a check/action.

The Noodle-eye was not the only time Sydney has been injured after revealing her balls, that was just the first one, and if Sydney had forgotten she had said she would be testing it just minutes before (her ADD isn’t that bad), Maxi would have remembered and had her test out both balls

and my ADD is that bad, and forgotten multiple times to do something after the best opportunity passed by. So I find the situation completely reasonable she wouldn’t think. Especially if other theories have floated out there; in fact the (alien brig) theory would be a good reason to not try it out. Maxima did say to not mess with it until they were at a safe area.

The problem I have with this is the massive character shift Sydney has suddenly had. Makes me wonder if some of those Alari souls got into her. I mean, she was basically presented as a virginal geek, getting embarrassed at the mention of sex. Now all of a sudden she has enough experience with oral sex to get excited at the thought of someone with a very flexible tongue. I understand she may have had some coital experiences with Frixx (implied), but obviously not of the oral kind. Her reaction just doesn’t make sense for her character.

Then you missed her joking with Dabbler over the bridge, joking at the aftermath of the Vehemence fight, and several others. She was never presented as a shy virginal character. Only that she was feeling a severe case of insecurity around comic book physique super-super models.

To me Sydney came off as being in between these two extreme points of view. “Less experienced” rather than “virginal”, to pick up on one specific aspect. I don’t think her shyness is limited to just being surrounded by super amazons. Right at the beginning of the comic, for example, we saw her hiding behind a counter to check out the hot customer she fancied.

That is a classic subconscious sign of her wishing to cover up herself, when she is thinking about sex.

Likewise she hates the sexually heightened environment of a club, but felt well at ease checking out Leon, in a more neutral setting.

There she could keep things safely within her geek comfort zone and get to know him in a relaxed way.

Of course the fact that he was not a ‘perfect’ super also avoided triggering her own insecurities.

Separately Sydney does actually have a strong libedo. She enjoyed seeing the topless heroes and is an avid fan of henai.

She was just less confident about the step that involved exposing her own body. The merest joking suggestion, by Harem, at the poolside, that Sydney might have to be seen nude, was enough to send her into a meltdown.

In Frix’s case he is different enough to the classical hero look, not to trigger her anxiety. Plus she is clearly a furry, so he fell right into one of her fantasy zones. In this case one that could never be practically realised in the normal world (barring cosplay encounters, which would clearly be with fellow geeks, therefore safe ground).

So I think this has occurred within the parameters of Sydney’s existing character.

And, as Dave says in his blog, whether her shyness or insecurities will have been permanently weakened remains to be seen. It may take similarly unusual circumstances to keep her in her comfort zones, in future.

Scars yes. Changes in appearance, performance (sight and muscles) and even more so aesthetic appeal, are very dodgy things for medical devices to be programmed to do automatically. Especially if dealing with an alien species (which in this case is Sydney, from the point of view of the medical device). Ethical, practical and aesthetic choices are likely to vary considerably from species to species. Would you want this fellow to choose how to improve Sydney’s appearance?

As another example, one of the most dangerous things that human females face is childbirth. An unfortunate side effect of bipedalism, and the current stage of human evolution, is that it is very hard to get a baby past the bones when they are being born.

So if the device was designed to correct any ‘genetic defects’ it may decide that the (obviously far superior) quadrupedal arrangement would improve Sydney’s long-term survival prospects.

Something that Sydney probably would not be very happy with. Off-the-shelf clothing shopping would be badly compromised.

A device would have no way to know the latter for an unfamiliar alien species (humans don’t get out and about in the Galaxy much). Whereas an individual’s genetic sequence may not be representative of their social norms. Plus the environment that someone grows up in can influence how that DNA expresses itself. Identical twins brought up in very different social circumstances can end up looking very different (take obesity as one example where lifestyle can potentially be a greater influence than genetic predisposition).

And, not least, a person’s genetics may have been corrupted. Radiation exposure can badly damage it, as an example.

Should the gadget be given the authority to decide which bit of DNA is the ‘correct’ version to use?

Excellent as always…
…
…
BUT,
there does seem to be an issue with Sydney’s collar, as it appears in the first panel, but none of the others. Nothing capable of ruining the comic, but noticeable to those of us with a smidge too much OCD

I have a friend who was deaf from birth I asked a similar question to. eg. If they could, would you want to cure being deaf? His answer was no, but he qualified that would be a choice deaf people might answer differently.

example: what if, in the case of ADHD, it would it also involve you becoming less creative?

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